November 21, 2012

"... for removing references to Al-Qaeda from the unclassified talking points about the Benghazi attack that Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials used in the early days after September 11, 2012," says Senator John McCain.

"I participated in hours of hearings in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week regarding the events in Benghazi, where senior intelligence officials were asked this very question, and all of them – including the Director of National Intelligence himself – told us that they did not know who made the changes. Now we have to read the answers to our questions in the media. There are many other questions that remain unanswered. But this latest episode is another reason why many of us are so frustrated with, and suspicious of, the actions of this Administration when it comes to the Benghazi attack."

He's presumably referring to this CBS news story that we were talking about yesterday. How can that news story be true if the Director of National Intelligence didn't know who made the changes? Did the director — James Clapper — dissemble before the committee? Maybe McCain just got it wrong. The cover story is... what? Some faceless entity within the Office of the Director is the scapegoat.

My experience in the Pentagon ODCSOPS (not ODCSINT), was that there would be an LTC, an experienced staff officer / PPT Warrior who would collate, reconcile and vet any proposed changes to the briefing slides (aka talking points). When done, the LTC would walk the brief around to the stakeholders and get somebody's initials on the coordination document.

The Obama administration is having a lying contest. So far, it's a umpteen way tie. I guess the transparent government thing expired sometime during his first term. The press will keep the pressure on until the truth comes out. /snark

My fellow treadhead Drill Sgt knows the process; and commenter nonapod is on target. The administration is playing rope a dope, and very soon, within a month, Benghazi will be forgotten. Sad, but I think accurate.

All bullcrap. A game of "Hot Potato" to pass around until no one knows what came from whom, when...and everyone else no longer cares. The cliche' "The check is in the mail and I'll respect you in the morning" comes to mind.

You/we have been lied to. Pointedly. Any change to the narrative will also be a lie. Oh, look....SQUIRREL!

I guess technically it hasn't been specifically uncovered that Obama or one of his immediate surrogates like Valerie Jarhead gave the order to change the talking points and thereby inventing a fictitious narrative.

I often try to understand how liberals must try to rationalize these unpleasant realities when they can no longer deny them. My guess is in their heads they think "So, he invented a story to help win an election. Big deal. He's still better than that evil Mitt Romney!".

It sounds like the Republicans are preparing to compromise. I wonder what they have been promised in return.

With the limited evidence made available to the general public, a reasonable person would have been skeptical of the conclusion drawn in the reports presented to the public. The only legitimate excuse that Rice, Clinton, and Obama could use is that they are either incompetent -- with respect to worldly matters -- or are corrupt.

Well RogerJ you actually had some of Obama's most dedicated sycophants on this board saying "Who cares?" And stuff like "It was only four people and Bush and Reagan killed a lot more Americans."

So there is no chance that they would even want this to be investigated. They lied when they said they wanted to wait until after the election to investigate this. As they have lied about so many other things.

Roger J. said...My fellow treadhead Drill Sgt knows the process; and commenter nonapod is on target. The administration is playing rope a dope, and very soon, within a month, Benghazi will be forgotten. Sad, but I think accurate.

The Middle East is still in turmoil and we still have a feckless and reckless Administration with divided loyalties, an aversion to responsibility, and ultimately, narcissistic urges. What else could go wrong?

I will say that Obama's handling of the whole Benghazi issue from lack of proving security all the way through coverup was not optimal. Also, his handling of the economy -not optimal.Also, his pronunciation of SAN SUU KYI’S name - not optimal.

"The Middle East is still in turmoil and we still have a feckless and reckless Administration with divided loyalties, an aversion to responsibility, and ultimately, narcissistic urges. What else could go wrong?"

Tank and Baron Zemo--actually I care--and while not privy to the details of the events, I can only conjecture--and yes, Baron, I agree that the administration has played rope a dope with this, and the whole thing will be forgotten in a few weeks. Again, with the exception of the four families of the American's killed. I understand that my view is pessimistic, but I think it is quite accurate.

Everyone is focusing on who removed from Rice's "presentation" the true facts (that it was a terrorist attack; that substantial planning was involved; that Al Quaeda affiliates were heavily involved; etc.). But that is only half the story. Who put in the false "facts" that Rice repeatedly asserted (that the attack was really a spontaneous demonstration that got out of hand; that a movie triggered the demonstration; that there was adequate security at the consulate; that the former SEALs were security contractors whose deaths proved that security was adequate; etc.).

Pardon my cynicism, but with holidays coming up, NFL playoffs, BCS, and inauguration galas, no one, with the exception the families of the dead will remember, and worse, even give a damn. Benghazi is already in the rear view mirror and will dissapear entirely in 30 days. That is very sad IMO.

ChipS--I appreciate yours and the professor's diligence about this, but again with my cynicism rampant--who in the hell are we going to push? The pushees dont give a shit--they are back in power and its all FORWARD

Nothing counts but that the total turd known as Obama watched the attack at Benghazi for SEVEN HOURS and forbade his commanders to come to the aid of Stevens, Smith, Doherty and Woods. Now watch the feckless GOP let it slide.

Comparing Benghazi to the Valerie Plame non scandal shows how much power the media has to influence the general public. We are well and truly fucked. We now live in what is essentially a banana republic with corruption so penetrating and intractable we have no hope to restore America to it's former stature as the beacon of freedom in the world.

They stole the election. The criminals have won, and they are moving to further consolidate their power and control the narrative and the historical record.

The USA used to be the force in the world that could resist and defeat this type of regime, but no more. We have been fatally infected with the socialist bacillus and the last hope for humanity is a flickering light that will be extinguished in many of our lifetimes.

Edutcher--the house, as you point out, impeaches and the senate convicts--not being a constitutional scholar I am not sure what the President might have done that would constitute high crimes and misdeamenors. (regretebly the founders did not include incompetence) And on the political side, a move by the house to impeach would only further public disgust at the republicans. I dont see any positives for the republicans on an impeachment motion. the democrats would have a pep rally on the white house lawn, and that would be about it.

The DNI is a cabinet level post. And now we have to get into word parsing. He didn't know who made the changes. But the Director takes his direction from the president. If he took a committee of people and said "Go in this room, and when you come out, I want this to be about a Youtube Video," does he know who made the change?

The simplest answer here is accountability. Imagine if a business did something like this. Said their cars were safe, when they weren't, and it was a proven cover-up. There would be severe sanctions, regardless of who did it.

Here, the lines are pretty darn clear. A lie was foisted on the American people, one quite favorable to the president. The head of the organization takes his direction from the president. Maybe he gave the direction on his own. But that he did not personally review this message, that because he did not know who made the change? What an incredibly lame excuse.

It's Bullshit. Now we will see what kind of press we have. Is our press going to be the kind that waits for the Demcrats to police themselves, or will the press do its job. I'm not holding my breath.

Sorry, I'm not buying this excuse. There's no way any responsible and competent president is going to go out in public without first seeing some raw analysis of what actually went down. This is smoke-and-mirrors pure and simple and even IF the intelligent report to POTUS had been "editted" (isn't that like the "cherrypicked" charge made about the Bush administration re: Iraq?) Obama is at minimum guilty of laziness and at worse guilty of malfeasance, dereliction of duty and public mendacity in promoting the spontaneous-protest-did-it meme.

And remember, the administration specifically claimed the reason it floated the protest-did-it meme was because early intelligence reports explictly stated that - which we now know is yet another bald-faced lie.

Dante said... The DNI is a cabinet level post. And now we have to get into word parsing. He didn't know who made the changes. But the Director takes his direction from the president. If he took a committee of people and said "Go in this room, and when you come out, I want this to be about a Youtube Video," does he know who made the change?

There has not been anything said anywhere that I have have seen about "the video" being mentioned in the intelligence briefings, classified or unclassified.

This whole argument therefore has an air of unreality about it. The mess in Benghazi and the insistence that it was due to "the video" does not seem to have any visible connection, so one naturally wonders why they so desperately want us to believe that it was caused by "the video."

Oh, they knew. They/he took a calculated risk - and apparently it was the right choice politically. They knew, almost immediately, that the attack was not caused by the video. But with the media in their pocket, and additional cover provided by the easily-duped/duplicitous Obama voter, they knew that it would be easy to delay the truth coming out until it wouldn't affect the election. At that point, it wouldn't matter anymore, because that same media and the Democratic politicians would be able to keep the administration from being held accountable.

Our beloved diversity hire president is a project come fruition and we speaking like this about the administration he's been put is very damaging to that project indeed so just knock it off already.

You know he is the living proof that affirmative action works and works beautifully now quit messing it up. And try being helpful once in awhile. Jeeze Louise it's why you're being called racist all the time, you seem a little bit resistant to getting with the program.

Who put in the false "facts" that Rice repeatedly asserted (that the attack was really a spontaneous demonstration that got out of hand; that a movie triggered the demonstration; that there was adequate security at the consulate; that the former SEALs were security contractors whose deaths proved that security was adequate; etc.).

This is only the first of whole bunch of questions related to Benghazi:

(1) Let us stipulate that Susan Rice merely parroted the talking points she was given, even though Central Intelligence claims that it knew almost from the start that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Then who gave the false talking points to Dr. Rice and why?

(2) Why were Stevens' requests for security turned down? And who turned them down? Has that person been requested to resign? Or at least assigned to count snow ptarmigans in Alaska in the winter?

N.B., There's been a lot of squid ink spread through the water on this one. Responsbility for embassy and consulate security rests with the Department of State. Not with the Department of Defense and not with Central Intelligence. If the responsible party was not Hillary Clinton then who shortstopped the requests?

(3) Who made the decision not to send in troops or at least air cover to support the Americans fighting for their lives? And on what grounds?

If the problem was that we couldn't get an effective counterforce there in a timely manner then there's a follow-up question. What, precisely, is this administration doing to make our troops more agile?

These are not unreasonable questions. How will we fix things if we don't ask them and get some good answers?

Inga claims to be a nurse, but apparently is unaware that it is standard practice at good hospitals to perform clinical audits for cases that had unexpected adverse outcomes. In this case Congress is performing much the same function.

In related news, Hillary is still "investigating" how her Rose Law firm billing files were somehow "discovered" in the first family's private quarters in the White House 2 years after being subpoenaed by a Federal judge.

It reminds me of when Valerie Plame claimed she hadn't suggested her husband for the job of investigating whether Iraq sought uranium from Africa. Her reply? "It wasn't me. Someone passed by -- And he suggested, 'Well why don't we send Joe?' Yeah, it was a faceless passerby who nobody remembers who had the brilliant idea. After all, you couldn't possibly find a qualified investigator inside the CIA. Let's send a former ambassador.

All we know to date indicate they would have been better off just to go with the intelligence estimate as it was. And there was no need to send Susan Rice out to "carpet bomb" the Sunday gasbag shows. Why not just let it muddle through in the normal manner?

I did not think the edits added "hateful video" into the talking points. I think she was winging that.

If she did, then she should be fired. I don't believe that, though. I think the director said "Take out the terror references." The video talking points were in there from the beginning. Even the Obamao talked about it. So did Jay Carney, press secretary.

Oh, some faceless committee did this. Garbage. The Director of National Intelligence is responsible for that the DNI. He must have approved it, and if he didn't he should be fired. And the person who hired him should be fired for having such poor judgement.

There was reference to "the video" in the report on the Cairo disturbance. It is possible someeone conflated the two; like O'Reilly frequently does not bother get his facts straight.But surely briefing our ambassador to the U.N. before she goes on the Sunday shows to make statements on such an urgent matter is held to a higher standard than the O'Reilly show? Isn't it?

Drago said - so wisely - that "Hillary is still "investigating" how her Rose Law firm billing files were somehow "discovered" in the first family's private quarters in the White House 2 years after being subpoenaed by a Federal judge.

Unfortunately the Benghazi "investigation" is again all about Hillary's signature style.

Hillary guided the whole thing - and she also is probably the mastermind (or a major one) for Fast and Furious. It's the Clinton imprint.

And I am just flabbergasted that she is a potential 2016 Dem Presidential Candidate.

Say it ain't so - but we'll just have to wait and see how far voter fraud technology gets us until then.

Well, this takes me back to that first day of all this, . . . why, golly gee, it was september eleventh!

We were getting reports out of Egypt about protests, and a good Twitter storm took place about how our USEmbassyCairo was apologizing to their own attackers.

Remember?

This is what Gov. Romney rightfully protested that PuffHo&Co smeared him over.

Remember?

Turns out THAT was by lowly staff and personal, too. Good to know we are in such capable hands, aye?

I remember being alerted to the whole awful thing by IowaHawkBlog tweets that day. They were awesome and angry, not quite his usual calm wit, and I appreciated how it notched it up for such an occasion.

I was just trying to go back and search it all, trying to recall how it came down and what we knew when.

Funny that lots of articles linked to the Embassy's statement, which is no longer available, scrubbed.

Here's Jake Tapper's entry on it, stamped 11 pm sept.11:"In a statement online [link to now-scrubbed embassy file], the Embassy of the United States in Cairo said that it “condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.” "

First Friendly Fire Shot Across the bow in this new war against America's Free Speech. That was followed by the Friendly Firing Squad of President Cunt and his leggy line of Vaginettes.

I remember being alerted to the whole awful thing by IowaHawkBlog tweets that day. They were awesome and angry, not quite his usual calm wit, and I appreciated how it notched it up for such an occasion.

Yes, that was a glorious day, my friend! A day of internet awesomeness that no American should forget. If only there could be a ribbon to commemorate Iowahawk's majesty that day.

bob wrote:It reminds me of when Valerie Plame claimed she hadn't suggested her husband for the job of investigating whether Iraq sought uranium from Africa. Her reply? "It wasn't me. Someone passed by -- And he suggested, 'Well why don't we send Joe?' Yeah, it was a faceless passerby who nobody remembers who had the brilliant idea. After all, you couldn't possibly find a qualified investigator inside the CIA. Let's send a former ambassador.

That was my friend Mike they were talking to. He used to mop the floors at the CIA headquarters. One day, some guys opened the door and asked him, while he was mopping "Hey, Should we send Joe?" And he answered "Yeah, I guess so. Who's Joe?".The rest is history.

Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, were killed after an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi tied to the production of an amateur anti-Islam film. (That attack appears to have been independent of the Cairo violence, but both appear to have been related to the production of the film.)

And so Benghazi ends for the Althousians. Not with a bang, but a wimper.

For a topic that got as many as four posts a day from Ms Althouse and literally thousands of posts from the punters there appears to be no there there. Such is life.

I have now run out of easily remembered cliches.

Too bad for you that isn't the case. The idea that Clapper fell on his sword for the president flies in the face of his prior testimony. There is more lying to be wrangled with. The whimper you hear is the one you have during digestion. I recommend a couple of tums to fix that particular problem. Carry on.

Maybe someone will admit to hiring Craig Livingstone--that director of the White House's Office of Personnel Security that no one would admit hiring. The one that collected hundreds of raw FBI files for Hillary. The possession of one or two sent Chuck Colson to jail. Craigie boy's qualification was playing "Chicken George" a costumed chicken that challenged GHW Bush to debate Clinton wherever Bush made an appearance. Perhaps Livingstone created the false Benghazi scenario. Democrats don't treat government/national security as a joke--ever. The guy they first put in charge of their auto industry realignment may have never had a real job, but he owned a car once. None of the other people they had available could say that.

I'm thinking that what this issue needs is someone to investigate and write a book, with impeccable sources.

That way, even if the MSM doesn't want to cover it, the research is done and the information assembled. Those who actually care about American lives will buy and read the book, and with enough interest, the issue will come to the forefront again.

Methadras, you unashamedly LIE about what I said, but that doesn't surprise me about a person who wishes others dead and to burn in hell, I think there is seriously something wrong with you.

Feel free to find that comment you just lied about and post it here.

I have commented here for about a year or slightly longer, during that time I've run across some great folks from both sides, but there are only two here that are as vile, nasty and hate filled, truly evil as you Meth. You make my skin crawl.

I remember being alerted to the whole awful thing by IowaHawkBlog tweets that day. They were awesome and angry, not quite his usual calm wit, and I appreciated how it notched it up for such an occasion.

Yes, that was a glorious day, my friend! A day of internet awesomeness that no American should forget. If only there could be a ribbon to commemorate Iowahawk's majesty that day.

Election 2012New media vs. Old - New media losesTea Party candidates vs. Obama - Tea Party loses.That was this year but four years from now it will be different. Thanksgiving commemorates the starving time the Pilgrims suffered and the good times that came after. Celebrate Thanksgiving today, my digital friends, determined to survive the starving time. Four years from now we will celebrate the good times.

Inga if you truly thought that an investigation were warranted you wouldn't have implied in all the posts about this that there was nothing to this and a republican witch hunt. Perhaps you don't realize what you're writing, but the problem is WE DO. Your posts on this subject are only a few weeks old. It's not like we have to go back far to see where you said no such thing. Shall we start going back over your posts and quote them back to you?Oh my god, arguing with liberals is truly like arguing with someone talking out of both sides of their mouth.That usually denoted either someone who's crazy or a liar. If someone with dementia.

I know you're not crazy, and I don't think you have dementia. So what's left?

This September 15th post of yours doesn't outright call for the film maker's arrest, but it does show you thought that he should be the one investigated. Also showed your utter contempt for freedom of speech:

AllieOop said...

Do you Althouse commenters not recognize the possibility that this guy was engaging in a much bigger, more sinister plot to incite some sort of holy war? You are screaming about his freedom of speech, he is yelling " fire", people have been trampled and are now dead. Oh poor bad movie guy, taken in for questions by the brownshirts.

Yes, so what? I was calling for him to be investigated, rightly so. What did we know about him? Why do you continue to try to canonize this pedophile felon parole violator? I certainly did not say he should be jailed for making a anti Muslim film, now did I?

Honestly, you folks have nothing, there is no there as ARM said upthread. I know it's dissapointing, another dissapoinment on top of losing the election, but either you can spend the next four years mashing sour grapes or you can work on expanding your own party and electing someone who can actually win an election in this country , with the demographics we have.

forbade his commanders to come to the aid of Stevens, Smith, Doherty and WoodsDon't forget there were about 30 Americans at the two sites. Some were injured. Were they all undercover? Have they all disappeared? Perhaps one or two will deep six their USG careers and come forward. You'd think they would be a little upset at the lack of American help.

The demographics we have are the problem. The demographics we have prefer that the gravy train keep running. The demographics we have have taken us off the fiscal cliff. The demographics we have are not going to allow us to continue on the European path, nor are they going to provide a safe landing place for Europe any more. The demographics we have are what sold our souls to China.

No conservative is going to embrace that scenario. So, we're going to lose. All of us. Even Inga and garage and shiloh and ARM.